However, asking for "something better" without suggesting something that is better is exceedingly vague. Some of the things that would be "better" are not available under the source licensing being used for Handbrake.

If you know of something better, suggest it. If you don't, do a bit of research to see if there is something, and suggest it.

In this case, however, it would have to be something very smart, because you're asking it to chose one frame out of 24 to insert to make 25 frames in a second, all while not affecting the smoothness of motion. To truly be smooth, you would have to take those almost-but-not-quite 24 frames, and use them to construct 25 NEW frames, averaging the motion of objects across them.

Frame rate conversion, other than by drop/dupe (which Handbrake already supports), involves very complex resampling algorithms.
A good one is Twixtor. Depending on your editor, it starts at $300+.for the plugin.

To be honest, the usual method for 23.976 -> 25 fps conversions is to overcrank it - assuming you apply pitch correction the only side effect is reducing the running time of the title by ~4%. This is common practice for PAL DVD releases.

TedJ wrote:To be honest, the usual method for 23.976 -> 25 fps conversions is to overcrank it - assuming you apply pitch correction the only side effect is reducing the running time of the title by ~4%. This is common practice for PAL DVD releases.

It's not just common, it's universal. There is no other way (except for some anime).

Also, pitch correction has the potential to decrease sound quality in negative ways. Usually, the sound is just stretched, leaving it almost a semitone higher. This is no more noticeable to audiences than the 4% faster pacing.

Given that we in PAL-land don't need 3:2 pulldown and we got a better colour system and frame resolution, I can live with the 4% speedup for 24p movie content. Blu-ray is making that moot nowadays anyway.